After being identified by AMR last month as likely to get a
non-disclosure agreement, JetBlue has held no talks with the
larger airline about a combination, Chief Executive Dave Barger
said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in
New York.

“We have not received a non-disclosure agreement,” he
said. “We’re not interested in receiving a non-disclosure
agreement from American Airlines.”

“We’re just not interested in participating in the
consolidation path, either being acquired or in acquiring
another company,” said Barger, 54. “Independence is our plan
today and it’s our path on a go-forward basis.”

Signing a non-disclosure agreement is a first step in
merger discussions. It gives prospective partners access to each
other’s financial records on condition that the information not
be shared.

US Airways

AMR sent a non-disclosure agreement last month to US
Airways Group Inc. (LCC), which is weighing its own takeover bid. At a
July meeting of AMR’s unsecured creditors committee, Chief
Executive Officer Tom Horton also identified Alaska Airlines,
Frontier Airlines and Virgin America Inc. as possible merger
partners, a person familiar with the situation said at the time.

That would fit with Horton’s stated goal of preferring to
have AMR emerge from bankruptcy as a stand-alone company and
then consider mergers to broaden American’s network. While
JetBlue has been regarded as a possible target for AMR, Barger’s
disavowal of interest dimmed those prospects.

“JetBlue doesn’t seem to be on the same page as that
speculation would imply,” said Jeff Kauffman, a Sterne Agee &
Leach Inc. analyst in New York. “That could attack the
credibility of the stand-alone plan.”

Airline Stocks

US Airways, whose shares have more than doubled this year
as it circles AMR, jumped 7.9 percent to $11.43 in New York to
lead a rally among airlines. The gain was the largest since May
24. JetBlue was unchanged at the close.

Michael Trevino, a spokesman for Fort Worth, Texas-based
American, declined yesterday to identify any recipients of the
agreements or discuss Barger’s comments.

“We have under way a thorough, objective, fact-based
process to review our strategic alternatives and compare them to
our own strong plan,” Trevino said. “We have sent NDA’s to
multiple parties and, beyond that, we will not comment on the
process.”

JetBlue’s growth strategy includes expanding in Boston, San
Juan and Central America, said Barger, who became CEO in May
2007. The sixth-largest U.S. airline by traffic also wants to
boost flights at Washington’s Reagan National airport and New
York’s LaGuardia, he said.

Those airports have restrictions on takeoff and landing
slots, which must be purchased or traded from another airline.
Adding flights outside the U.S. may require government approvals
for so-called route authorities.

Gates, Slots

“Out of the consolidation and merger activity, we are
interested in slots, we are interested in purchasing gates, we
are interested in route authorities,” Barger said. “We have 17
flights a day at Reagan National. It could easily be 50 or 75 or
100 departures a day, if we had the slots.”

American has figured in industry discussions about possible
tie-ups because it wasn’t involved in the major deals at the end
of the last decade. New York is American’s chief East Coast hub
for trans-Atlantic flights, as well as JetBlue’s biggest base.

The carriers have a so-called interline agreement for some
New York and Boston flights that has been the subject of recent
conversations, Barger said. That accord lets each airline sell
tickets on specific partner flights and check bags on one
itinerary, with revenue going to the flight’s operator.

JetBlue travelers can book on American to 15 foreign cities
from New York and Boston, while fliers to the two destinations
on American jets from abroad can reach 26 U.S. cities via
JetBlue. They also share flight slots in Washington and New
York.

Barger said JetBlue’s network, which now stretches as far
south as Colombia, is at its geographic limit because of the
range of the carrier’s Airbus SAS A320 jets. Those single-aisle
planes form the backbone of its fleet, bolstered by Embraer SA (EMBR3)
E190s.